


swim until the swamplands come

by candypolaroide



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Flirting, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, THE VLOG WAS SUPPOSED TO BE REAAAAAAAALLL, floridian swamps and brighton marinas and sketchy pizza huts as plot points
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candypolaroide/pseuds/candypolaroide
Summary: Clay stares out at the dark water. Despite being awful at geography, he’s pretty sure that this is the Atlantic Ocean shifting right under their feet. Strange to think that right on the other end of this crashing wave is Florida. If he just swam, and kept swimming until land appeared, he might reach home. Him and George aren’t so far away after all, really.Feet dangling from the edge of the pier, sneakers off and socks rolled into little balls inside them. Water nice and cool, a welcome respite from the still muggy summer air. Clay looks at the lights bobbing softly on the shoreline and tries not to think about how small George’s shoes look next to his.(or, Dream goes to England because the act of falling in love with one’s best friend is…complicated.)
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 538





	swim until the swamplands come

**Author's Note:**

> pretend that the vlog is real and that men keep their word and that block boys are worthy of sleepless nights writing stupid fics.
> 
> also pretend that Floridian marshes and two-star Pizza Huts aren't secretly romantic, i dare you.

Sometimes, the act of falling for one’s best friend is as simple as hearing their voice after a particularly long day and thinking, _oh._

Other times, the act of falling in love is as complicated as downloading a sepia-toned Minecraft texture pack to simulate the vision of said colour-blind best friend, only to realize that everything is ugly except for the colour blue.

“Blue’s my favourite colour,” George says with a hint of embarrassment in his voice.

Clay looks around at the ashy Nether wasteland where blue is literally the only colour that stands out. For some reason that simple fact is just so obvious, makes so much sense that all at once he feels impossibly fond.

 _Of course_ George’s favourite colour is blue. It’s the single pretty colour that an idiot with strong Protan colour-blindness can see. His mind’s made an irrevocable connection between George and the colour blue now, tied together with a strange sort of melty feeling in his chest.

Blue’s maybe his new favourite colour too, he thinks.

_Oh._

Sometimes the act of falling in love with one’s best friend is…complicated.

Even though everybody assumes that Dream’s the flirt, George is the one that tweets racy things and then giggles about it for fifteen minutes afterwards. He references porn scenes on live streams, but acts like a scandalized virgin whenever Clay presses him about it. George, who stutters and bumbles his way through any sort of compliment with the suaveness of a sixteen year old boy, confuses him in a way that no one ever has.

Clay, for his part, might be even worse at the whole flirting thing. He calls everybody _baby_ because it’s just buddies no matter how much the Internet protests. He says things, brash things, like _kiss me_ and _I love you_ with the confidence that only best bros are allowed to muster.

Whenever he says these things, George does something stupid with his eyes that makes Clay’s insides do something even stupider.

“Shut up,” is George’s usual blushing retort, as if he doesn’t know what his own face looks like when he’s smiling. “That’s inappropriate.”

Clay edits his videos like a dirty secret running underneath the world’s noses unnoticed. He keeps George’s stuttering in real time, highlighting screams that sound so suspicious out of context. The clips are incriminatingly flirtatious in a way that hints so much for the entire world to see. He isn’t sure whether George chooses to purposefully ignore the romantic subtext, or if he’s just completely oblivious.

“Why’d you leave that bit in with me groaning?” he hears him ask one night, teasing around a mouthful of British biscuits.

This is his favourite George, all sleep-deprived and giggly. International hours make it so that one of them is always nocturnal, and consequentially unfiltered to a fault.

“It was more of a moan, really.” Clay smacks his head against his pillows. “And I liked it.”

Unfiltered to a fault (but this is his fault, probably).

“Shut up,” George laughs. “They’re totally different sounds Dream, learn to tell them apart.”

There are fewer things Clay wants to know more than the differences between George’s moans and groans. He spends the night imagining scenarios in which he might learn and ignores everything in his mind screaming at him to stop.

On the day that George shows up to stream with freshly combed hair and a navy blue suit, Clay has to physically refrain himself from reacting out loud. Then, since he’s never really been one for self-control, he caves.

“You look really handsome in that suit, George.” Luckily, the act of whispering hides the way his voice is cracking. “I love that tie.”

He watches as George scrunches his face up, and then fiddles with his tie. George’s avatar is moving closer now, but Clay’s eyes are glued to the small facecam on the bottom of his screen.

George’s eyes are dark, intent. Eyebrows arched. “Is that all?”

“Um—”

George creeps closer. “Is there anything else that you’d like to say to me, Dream?” Eyes going darker. Brows moving higher. Clay getting redder.

He's pretty sure he's forgotten how to speak.

Luckily, the moment is ruined by a punch from Sapnap that alleviates all tension. Clay wheezes and hits him back, a little bit from relief but mostly to distract from how the chat's filled up with _THIS IS DEFFO FLERTING!!!_

Later, he crawls back into his empty bed and skips through parts of the stream that’s already been uploaded online. He looks specifically for talk of grey sweatpants and sending pictures. He rewatches George’s reaction several times, which makes his pulse thud so loudly he can feel it through sweaty palms.

Clay tries very hard not to think about George; not to think about George seeing him in grey sweatpants; and tries even harder not to think about George wearing them too.

He gets very little sleep that night.

In the morning, his phone has a new Snapchat notification. It’s from George, which is both surprising and nerve-wracking in a way that feels like he's thirteen with acne in the Nickelodeon hot tub all over again.

Opening it up, he sees that George has sent a picture of some god-awful Yeezys that are totally ugly but very hype-beast approved. The caption is simply, _what are u wearing step-dream_ with a winky face.

With nothing else to blame except his sleep-deprived, caffeine-lacking brain, he goes to the chat and responds, _I’m not wearing anything bc I’m in bed rn,_ before the innuendo’s even been processed.

A beat, and then the internal freakout begins. He wants to laugh, hurl, and throw his phone out the window all at once. He wants to scream, _WHAT DOES A STEP-DREAM EVEN MEAN I AM NOT VERY GOOD AT THIS_.

Belatedly, he wonders if blocking George on every form of social media would stop him from being such an embarrassing wreck forever.

A buzz on his phone.

George, again.

 _cute_ _😉_

Clay crawls into a den of blankets and contemplates never coming back out.

Like any downward roller coaster, things start to move quickly after that.

“We should sync up our sleeping schedules,” George says one day.

Clay laughs, more concentrated on his screen than the conversation happening around him. “There’s not that much of time difference between England and Florida. You’re only—what, like four hours ahead?”

“Five, actually.” He can practically feel George’s shrug. “But I don’t like those five hours without you.”

He stops. His face is burning. “Oh, come on,” he says.

“Well, it’s true.” George sort of runs away from him on-screen, almost like he’s embarrassed. Without even thinking, Clay starts chasing after him.

Clay knows that George has a few cat-like tendencies. He’s paradoxically bad at giving affection, but miffed when he doesn’t get any. He also knows that George has a hard time putting his feelings into words, like showing emotion is an admittance of defeat for him. Gives off major only-child vibes too—a little spoilt, a little bratty when he doesn’t get special treatment. Maybe it’s because of his stupidly cute face or his charming Britishness, but people do like to simp for George in a babying, doting way. He knows from experience that sweet nothings don’t come easily from George. It means a lot to hear them so often directed at him.

“So let’s stay up together then,” he says. Thwacks George’s back a few times for emphasis. “Let’s watch The Office and cuddle.”

George giggles, high-pitched and squeamish. “Blecgh, Dream, just pulled a ‘Netflix and chill’ on me.”

“Florida men do it best.” Clay smiles, because he can hear George laughing in the background. They crack up like that together, one of those rib-splitting, stomach-cramping, hiccup-until-they-snot kind of fits, until Sapnap joins their channel.

Later, they do their best to stay up together. Clay can hear George’s breath slowing down, hitching on the exhales until a quiet steadiness begins. He feels his own eyelashes fluttering shut, once, twice. The street lights outside flicker quietly in the mid-May humidity. They fall asleep on call.

It’s a good day.

Communicating with online friends is usually hard, but with George it comes alarmingly easy. His embarrassingly candid feelings get blasted all over Twitter, his Instagram page is spammed with flirty notifications, and they send enough Snaps back and forth that it’s almost ridiculous how he's still managed to hide his face. It’s as if they’re trying to compete over who can stay the most in-touch; who can make the distance between them work the best.

George sends Twitch clips, mostly of them, and animatics of their friends that go viral on YouTube. Clay sends foot memes and Reddit threads and cute girls on Twitter just to see his reaction.

Somewhere along the way, George gets a crush on one of those girls and it’s as bad as Clay feared. Andrea’s beautiful, and intelligent, and has a really good knack for laughing at exactly the right moments in any conversation.

Clay hates her.

They go on a stupid dating game show where nothing stands between them except for eight other women and George’s own neuroses. It’s kind of funny, seeing George blow his chance with his dream girl. It’s kind of heart-wrenching, seeing him so plainly obsessed with anything about her.

Maybe Clay’s a glutton for punishment, or at the least a bit masochistic. There’s no other good reason as to why he himself slides into Andrea’s DM’s, under the guise of soling her split wounds.

As if his best friend isn’t in love with her and as if he’s not in love with his best friend.

Coming back on the Internet just in time to see the whole “Minx-spits-on-George” fiasco, he can see that George is actually physically upset.

“She spat on me!” he wails, to the sadistic delight of thousands on the Internet.

It’s a whole mess, and Clay knows that there’ll be hell to pay for what he’s about to do—from George, from Andrea, and maybe even from that weird pretty Scottish girl with an affinity for spitting affection onto bewildered boys. Still though, he purposefully ignores any bro-code warnings before flaunting Andrea right in front of George’s grieving, spit-addled face.

“Wait, you’re playing together with _her_?” George’s voice cracks.

Clay just adds her to the call and wishes that he didn’t feel so many things—jealousy and smugness and a little bit of vindication—all at once. Like, yeah, he pulled the girl that George lost. But it doesn’t make him feel any less shitty, and it certainly doesn’t make George jealous of the right person.

Everything George feels is written plaintively on his face, which would be less of a punch to the gut if they were about him. They've gotten pretty good at reading each others' emotions, and he can tell that George may be even more hurt than he lets on.

They don’t speak for three days after that.

He pretends like it’s not the worst three days of his life.

Clay’s the one that breaks first. He’s sick of listening to XXXTentacion and re-watching _He’s Just Not That Into You_ on his supremely shitty iPad screen. He’s also bored of breaking stupid blocks alone and tired of how lonely his ears get when there’s only silence echoing through them.

It’s nearly four hours past midnight in London, but George picks up on the first ring anyways.

“Want to play something?” He hopes he doesn’t sound desperate.

A beat.

“Yeah.”

Clay smiles, slow and sure. “Love you.”

There’s another pause. He can practically hear the gears turning in George’s head, weighing if he should say it back.

“I…don’t _not_ love you, Dream.”

There’s a high pitched laugh and he knows that he’s been forgiven.

“Clay,” he says. “Um. You should—you can call me, uh. Clay.”

At this point, he’s throwing all sheets to the wind and diving in headfirst. George is like a physical brand on him, obvious and permanent and capable of turning his skin bright red.

“Okay. I don’t not love you…Clay,” George says. He sounds a little breathless.

Clay smiles, just as gone. “You’re such an idiot.”

As a surprise, Clay sends George a pair of colour-distinguishing glasses and tells him its for a video. Really, though, it’s just to see if George will smile in the way that he likes. To see if he’ll enjoy seeing the world as Clay does.

George is livestreaming the event, and clearly trying to stall with glasses still perched on his head. “Dream, I’m nervous. Like, seriously.”

“Just put it on,” he encourages.

Clay knows his voice is fond, stupidly so. He’s blushing, even through two screens and four monitors and three broadband connections and one ocean. He’s so screwed.

George gets the glasses on and his reaction to colours is so adorable that even the chat goes quiet. George discovers that he likes pink tulips, and lilacs, and little blue cornflowers. The Internet collectively simps wildly.

And there’s a part where George says, “Let me look at you some more,” just like Clay hoped he would. He plants a little rose right beside Dream’s legs.

“You’re such an idiot,” Clay laughs, but anyone can tell that he’s pleased.

Clay’s rather reserved about grand gestures, but Dream isn't. Dream, with the midnight hours cramped in his childhood bedroom and recklessness for the sake of being reckless, is much better at making bold promises that he can’t keep.

The two of them are distinctly different, in his opinion. On the internet, Dream’s comfortable in a way that Clay never really is. Dream’s the guy who can hit ten million subscribers based on talent alone, without ever showing a single one of them his face. Dream gets to go viral every few days on four different social media platforms, and Dream can easily have hour-long conversations with complete strangers any night of the week.

Clay, on the other hand, is not like that. He’s not shy, exactly, but more…reserved. Chill, he likes to think. Unfazed, smooth, unassuming, just like his namesake. Real-life Clay likes football and beer and hot girls. Real-life Clay needs to wear glasses when his eyes are too tired and reads YA books in public on the subway. In real life, Clay’s the guy that smiles at cashiers in Whole Foods, but is out past revolving doors before they can wheedle him into small talk.

And when he hears plans involving a Pizza Hut on a Saturday night in small British town called Brighton, Real-Life Clay hesitates before doing anything stupid like looking for flights.

But Dream? Dream buys both him and George a ticket.

Clay’s plane touches down in Brighton’s airport at the same time that George’s train is supposed to be nearing its station. He has a wild impulse to rush over there right away, like one of the main characters in those romcoms his mom always watches. It’d be nice to meet George at a terminal, seeing him hop off a dusty railroad looking all disheveled in the polished way cute British boys do best.

But then Clay thinks about the awkwardness of trying to surprise someone who has no clue what he looks like in a sea of harried commuters, and decides that it’s better to check into his hotel first.

It’s nice from the outside, a little stone cottage Air BnB rental right on the waterfront. Aquatic-themed, with little rows of bluebells planted outside and a calming ocean colour scheme in every room. Brighton’s a seaside town that’s mostly for tourists, but Clay’s used to that after living in Orlando for so many years. He finds himself laying on his bed and staring awkwardly at the light-blue wallpaper in his hotel room to pass time.

Google Maps says that the Pizza Hut is only fifteen minutes away from his Air BnB. Clay’s usually punctual to a fault, but today he ends up running late because he spent too long staring at the robin's-eggshell wash above his sprawled out frame. It’s a good ceiling, actually, blue and pretty in a kitschy sort of way. Good enough that, if everything goes to shit today, he won’t feel too bad about crying under it.

BadBoyHalo texts him _good luck_ rather cryptically, right when he’s trying to pick out a shirt. Then his phone pings again with, _DRESS TO IMPRESS MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION U GOT THIS DOOD!!!_

He ends up spending another five minutes choosing between a blue flannel (lumberjack?), or a dark red T-shirt (college dropout?), or just slumming it in his most comfortable grey FSU hoodie (South Florida Man???).

Clay keeps the blue flannel. He brushes his teeth, twice, then rinses with mouthwash for good measure. He brings a hat and a face mask, because the idea of anonymity is so deeply embedded in him that it just feels like a given to have an escape plan in his back pocket.

He uses Google Maps on the shitty Pizza Hut and locks his door behind him.

There’s a moment of awkwardness when they first meet up. Clay goes in for a dap and George reaches up for a hug. Wilbur just stands there motely like a dad seeing his daughters off at junior prom.

“Hi—”

“Hey—”

They both start speaking at the same time, before halting and breaking off. Clay’s staring at the pebbled ground beneath their feet and he’s pretty sure that George is looking over his head at the sky.

He catches a glimpse of tattered tan Yeezys and laughs, a good wheezy one fueled with nerves and heart palpitations. George cracks a smile as soon as he hears it and Clay takes the opportunity to joke, “What are you _wearing,_ Step-George?”

The awkwardness shatters then, tension completely disappearing as the three of them start laughing. Wilbur leads the way to show them the "best pizza in town" and Clay hangs back a bit to walk in line with George.

He looks like he usually does, Clay thinks. Same eyes dark, same smile white. Navy blue sweater, and he notes somewhere in the back of his mind that they're matching. Surprisingly, George’s head barely comes up to his shoulders. Clay’s tall, so usually he’s already looking down at people, but something in George’s slight frame and angled face makes him miss a step. He’s used to them being exactly eye-level, online.

He wonders what George thinks, when he looks at him. Clay turns his head, maybe to ask, but then he sees George already staring. Blushing, he turns away and focuses on following Wilbur’s steps.

“I’m so excited for buffalo wings,” Wilbur’s saying as they push through the Pizza Hut doors. “This place has the best ones: right on that cusp of mildly sweet and unbearingly painful.”

The booth that Wilbur finds is tucked into a noisy corner close to two flat screen TVs and a horde of evidentially hardcore soccer fans. Incessantly horrible Europop blares from the overhead speakers. Fluorescent lights wash out their faces in a particularly unflattering manner and hollow out contours in their cheeks. Clay can’t believe he can still be so in love with someone in such an awful Pizza Hut.

A pretty blonde waitress comes up to their table and whips out her notepad. “What can I get you lads?” Her gum is snapping rather viciously, but Clay doesn’t miss the way she flutters her lashes slightly when she looks him up and down.

“Um,” he says, “could I get a cherry Coke? And an artichoke pizza, please.”

Wilbur opens his mouth, presumably to ask about buffalo wings but gets interrupted by George making a face.

George literally gags, which would be hilarious if Clay wasn’t still hyperventilating about being able to see it in person. “Artichoke?”

“Shut up. It’s severely underrated, okay?”

“The only underrated pizza is plain cheese. Ruining it with artichoke is just evil.”

“It’s the perfect blend of salty and sweet. Imagine being basic," he teases. "So plain-cheese basic.” 

“You’re literally the most gross person ever.” It feels pointed, in the way that George rolls his eyes rudely. It feels flirty, in the way he doesn’t seem to mean it.

“Artichoke pizza is literally a Florida swamp staple, George. Just try it.”

“Ew.” George wrinkles his nose delicately. “I’ll just have a regular cheese, please.” He sends a winning grin to the waitress, whose perky smile has faltered a bit.

Her eyes bounce between them and she says, “I can totally come back?”

“Buffalo wings—” Wilbur begins again.

Clay cuts him off with, “It’s fine, we’ll have one of each pizza.”

“Wait no!” George raises his hand like he’s in school or something. “Can mine have double-cheese instead?”

“How can you even eat that? You’re lactose intolerant,” he says with dismay as George tilts his nose up in the air.

“Activating [ _ignore haters_ ] mode.”

“What—”

“I AM IGNORING MY HATERS.”

“George!” But he’s laughing now, a good wheezy one that only seems to come out when they're together. “Sure, whatever.”

George starts bouncing up and down, because he’s a twenty-three-year-old idiot. “Yay, cheese cheese cheese cheese cheese cheese…”

Wilbur just groans and thuds his head on the table. “And all I wanted were buffalo wings.”

Dinner seems to pass by in a haze. Apparently, time moves differently when Clay’s entire frontal cortex is fixated on the person sitting next to him.

George is building a tower out of paper straws. Their fingers brush once, twice, three times before he can’t stand it anymore. They’re close enough to knock knees, so Clay does.

Sometime during dinner, George gets up to go to the bathroom. He ruffles Clay’s hair on his way out, making him smile stupidly at his plate of crusts.

“Psst.” He glances up in time to see Wilbur sliding himself across the seat. Wilbur’s glancing around over the booths in an obvious attempt to seem furtive, but just looks very stupid.

Clay just looks at him because he’s getting the unwelcome sense that he knows what’s coming.

“So, uh, what’s going on with you and George, man?” Wilbur’s eyes are rather hangdog, but probably because he’s craning his neck to peer up at him from what apparently is supposed to be a very trustworthy angle.

“Uh, nothing. At all.” He knows he sounds a bit defensive, but he’s too focused on how Wilbur’s grabbing menus and propping them up to hide their faces. “Dude, the rest of the Pizza Hut’s gonna think that we’re making out.”

Wilbur ignores this and stacks another one on top of their heads. “You guys have been acting rather strange, you know. And that’s coming from me, who’s admittedly a very strange person.”

He ducks down as Wilbur starts to seal them into their little menu shack. “Okay…?”

“I’m not going to judge you for anything, man.” Wilbur’s eyes are nearly crossed right now, but he’s looking at Clay with an intensity bordering comical. “George’s a great guy, and he clearly likes you a lot. If you’re going to make your move, might as well be now, amiright?”

“Wait.” He shakes his head, making the menus above rattle a bit. “What? He doesn’t—we’re not, I—”

“There’s so many missed connections in this world. Trust me, I would know.” Wilbur scoffs a bit, and gazes forlornly into the Mozza Sticks page. Clay wonders if he’s thinking about Niki right now, far away in Germany. “You’re so lucky to have found each other. Don’t be stupid enough to think that it’s not as rare as it is.”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it abruptly. The most profound piece of advice that he’s ever been given, from Wilbur Soot of all people, just announced itself in a Pizza Hut menu fort. What else is there to say?

“I’m baaaaack!” Footsteps approach, and then their rickety fort goes tumbling down. George is staring at them, how they’re sitting nearly nose-to-nose and covered with menus. Clay’s pretty sure the look on his face is one of sheer horror; the one happening on Wilbur’s is a purely crazed-genius thing.

George clears his throat. “Wha’d I miss?”

As they’re getting ready to leave the restaurant, they bicker over how to split the bill. George insists on paying for Clay’s pizza because apparently all British boys really were raised with the manners they're famously reputed for.

“Besides,” George says with a sly wink, “You're gonna fly me out to the bogs soon. And you'll pay for all of Florida’s shitty food then.”

Outside, Wilbur gives them all a hug before leaving. “Goodbye, lads.”

He and George both salute him, as though they’re in L’Manburg instead of Brighton.

Wilbur marches up and down in beat with his speech. “You boys stay strong. Stay vigilant. And STAYYY—”

He pauses. Looks at the two of them in the sunset’s dusky light. Clay wonders if he’s seeing Dream and GeorgeNotFound, or if right now they’re simply just Clay and George.

“Stay in touch, mates.” With that, they wrap into a group hug. George, unsurprisingly, squirms his way out of it first. Wilbur pulls back a little to look at Clay with those eyes like, _Do you know what to do now?_

He nods, with an odd sort of lump in his throat as he gives a final wave goodbye.

They both watch as Wilbur makes his way back home through the city, his tall silhouette a lanky shadow on broken cobblestone. There’s a poignant pause, with him and George both staring at the ground, just the two of them left.

It feels like the ending of a first date, when expectant silence is filling up the car and the keys are still idling in the ignition. Clay doesn’t want to say goodbye, not now and surprisingly not ever. The day’s spoiled him, ruined him with the knowledge of having so much George in his life. And now that he knows what George walks like and what he talks like, it’s hard to go back to suddenly having less.

“Wanna go to the pier?” George blurts out.

Clay looks at him, relieved. “Yes."

The pier, as it turns out, is fittingly right beside the Pizza Hut.

George clambers onto the deck, legs swinging off the edge over dark waves.

“Don’t get the Feezys wet,” Clay says as he sits down beside him.

“What?”

“Feezys. Fake Yeezys.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” George says. “These are one-hundred percent real, by the way. One-hundred percent Kanye-approved.”

“Please.” He scoffs. “Even Kanye’s not one-hundred percent Kanye-approved.”

“Trueeee!” George screeches and they both giggle at that.

He stares out at the inky blue waters. His geography’s not the greatest, but he’s pretty sure that it’s the Atlantic Ocean shifting right under their feet. Strange to think that right on the other end of this crashing wave is Florida. If he just swam, and kept swimming until land appeared, he might reach home. Him and George aren’t so far away after all, really.

“You look—” George breaks off, looking away. He’s almost blushing, but Clay can’t really tell in the poor lighting. “Not what I expected.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

He shrugs, gaze flickering over Clay rather quickly. “Just, different, is all.”

“Okay?” Clay straightens his posture and runs a hand through his hair a bit self-consciously.

George rolls his eyes. “In a good way, _Jesus._ ”

“Oh.” He clears his throat. “So do you. I mean, you look the same, but different. But good, too. Just—good.”

They start shoving each other then. They both back off after George nearly falls into the pier.

At around four o’clock in the morning, Clay gets his first yawn.

George whips his head around. “You tired?”

He shakes his head. “Nah.”

Feet dangling from the edge of the pier, sneakers off and socks rolled into little balls inside them. Water nice and cool, a welcome respite from the still muggy summer air. Clay looks at the lights bobbing softly on the shoreline and tries not to think about how small George’s shoes look next to his.

Truthfully, he is rather tired. The travelling and the jetlag, on top of his already messed-up sleep schedule, is making his eyes droop. But he can’t go back to his hotel, that room full of no friends and no George. He doesn’t want to say goodbye. He doesn’t want to sleep in a bed so empty after meeting someone so full of life.

“Wanna get some food?” George’s head drops down on his shoulder. It’s a little gesture, except Clay’s hoping that it means a lot.

“Are you hungry?”

He can feel George’s shrug on his shoulder. “I mean, a little. Dunno what’s open at this hour though.”

“It is getting late.”

“Yeah.”

“Our sleep schedules are synced up anyways.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a beat of silence. George shifts a little, snuggling his nose further into the crook of Clay’s neck. He wonders if his heart is beating as loud as he thinks it is. George can probably hear it, from how close he is.

“How ’bout fish-n-chips?”

“That’s so British, oh my God.”

“Well, where are we now, Clay? In _Britain._ ”

It’s nice to know they both don’t want this thing to end. It’s almost sunrise now, nearing four, but Clay’s always had a soft spot for this particularly witchy hour. Four o’clock is the time of day that's sometimes early morning—but if he's with the right type of people, four o’clock is sometimes still late night.

“You should marry me,” he says into the dark, kidding but intentional.

George jerks up and ignores this, despite the redness rising up through his neck. “Right, there’s this chips place by the harbour that’s pretty good—”

“I’m serious, dude.” His tone is definitely not serious. It’s incriminatingly casual. It’s so forcedly chill that it comes out as very obviously unchill.

“Dude, can you just let that go, please? I said it _once_ and now apparently you’re going to hold it over me forever.” It’s almost endearing, the way George is resolutely not looking at him. He wonders vaguely if his neck is hurting from hyper-extending it at such a large angle.

He remembers George saying it on call once, tinny through the speakers of a headset that he nearly dropped in shock. He thinks about how strange it felt, back when they were still joking around and straddling the “keeping our socks on” line of flirting.

Now, he wants to know when they crossed that line, drawn invisibly in the sand. As if there was one specific moment that pushed them over the ledge, one special late-night call or a certain _I love you_ that made everything too real. If he’s honest, the part where two bros talked about marrying each other was probably their FastPass into a territory of consequences.

His shoulder seems to sway of his own accord, and more words come babbling out of his mouth. “I mean seriously though, like what if we did and I got a British visa so I could visit you guys anytime—”

“Clay, stop.”

“Brighton’s such a cool place and England is so fun. And if we do it then we’d be scamming two government agencies which would be very cool, very epic indeed—”

“Seriously, can you not?”

“—and look, George, if you really don’t want to in the future we could get a divorce or something so you wouldn’t even have to mean it—”

George shoves him then, hard enough to almost knock him into the pier. “Can you just. Stop? Like, just fucking stop. Clay. Dream. Whatever.” His eyes are blazing.

Clay swallows, taking a step back. He can hear the waves lapping against the dock ominously. Somewhere in the distance, a late summer cicada chirps lazily. It’s funny, how cicadas are so nostalgically reminiscent of Orlando swamplands in his mind. Funny how there’s a piece of home with him even all the way out here on the opposite side of the world.

He clears his throat. “Sorry. I, uh. Didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” George mutters. There’s a distance between them now that’s different than before. George seems farther from him now than when he was in Florida, and he hates it.

Abruptly, George turns away from him and starts walking. “I’m going back to my hotel. Big train ride tomorrow back to London, and all that.”

Clay’s still standing on the pier. He wants to run after him and call out his name. He wishes he were Dream for a second, all sureness and charisma and grand gestures. He thinks about going up to George and kissing him, even for just a second.

But then George is rounding the corner and Clay’s brain’s always been a little slow to catch up to his heart.

He knows that Real-Life Clay isn’t cooler or smoother or more confident in the ways that people expect. But he also knows that Real-Life Clay is much, much, luckier than any other possible version of himself could be. Real-Life Clay is lucky enough to have people like Wilbur to call him out on his bullshit. Lucky enough to book the last plane ticket into Brighton; luckier still to rent a room in the one town where he knows his best friend in the whole world will be.

Out of all the small miracles it took for them to meet, Clay’s not about to tell this one go in real-time. 

“George. Hey, wait!” His legs are long, long enough to catch up in a few steps. “George, wait—can you please just listen to me?”

George whips around, hair flying in the wind. His eyes are still angry, but there’s a defeat in them that makes Clay ache. Says nothing, just stares at him until he speaks.

“George.” His mouth is running dry now.

“What?” George’s voice is so flat, it sounds like _wot._

“I’m sorry. I’m kidding, but I’m also kind of serious. Not about actually getting married, but I mean—”

“—what..?”

“But what I meant is that we probably shouldn’t get married until we go on a date first at least, but what I really meant was that I’m asking you on a date, but what I _really_ meant, underneath all of that, was that I like you, I like you a lot and I just—”

“ _What._ ”

“I just like you,” he finishes rather lamely.

George opens his mouth and closes it, sort of like a gaping fish. His eyebrows are nearly disappearing into his hairline. It’s like watching a Java code crash, with nothing but the ERROR.exe message left.

“I like you,” he repeats. “I like you so much and I think about you more. I think about you when I listen to Hozier songs, and also the new Taylor Swift, and any other song that was written about a person, really.”

George wrinkles his nose. “Even Kanye?”

“Dude!”

George starts cracking up, like, full-body laughs that make him almost trip off the deck. Clay’s entire face is completely red. He’s not sure if he’s being Punk’d right now, because even his worst nightmares do not involve him spewing his heart out so awkwardly with George cackling an inch away.

“Um, George…?”

He's so taken aback by George’s hysterics that he doesn’t even realize how close they’ve gotten until they’re cheek-to-cheek, then nose-to-nose, then—

—and then their lips are touching but Clay’s still not moving, his eyes darting around with nothing to fuel them except gobsmacked confusion.

George pulls back, still snorting a little. “You’re such an idiot.”

He’s bewildered. He’s confused. He’s kissing George right now, _again_ , but this time it’s infinitely better because his eyes are closed and his hands are reaching up to cup George’s face and he’s laughing too now because he finally gets it.

Somehow they find his little blue hotel again, racing through the darkened streets with sweaty palms attached to interlaced fingers.

They kiss up the stairs. It takes forever to open up his door.

Stumbling in, George pushes him away a little and looks up through dark lashes. “Do you have, um, stuff?”

Clay trips back a bit and stares. It takes a second for what George said to click in his brain, but as soon as it does he can’t think about anything else. “Uh, yeah, just gimme a sec.”

The time it takes for him to undo the zipper on his duffle bag and ruffle through his stuff is painfully eternal. His fingers are shaking and they can’t seem to stop, not even after he finally unearths the condom box and pries one out.

George quirks an eyebrow. “Prepared.”

He swallows. “Praying.”

The shiny tinfoil wrapper in his hand doesn’t feel real. The boy with sitting on his bed with ruffled hair and no shirt doesn’t feel real. It seems near impossible that everything’s worked out the way it did, with the two of them breathing the same air between touching lips. Clay’s had sex before, but there’s something about the hugeness of George’s eyes that makes him feel like a virgin all over again.

George looks at him then, with those dark eyes like a challenge. “Are you gonna come over here or what?”

So smooth with it, yet Clay can tell that he’s asking for real underneath all that bravado. It makes him feel a little better then, knowing that he’s not the only one that's nervous.

He steps closer, placing the condom on the nightstand with deliberate slowness. George’s eyes flick to it quickly, and he can see the swallow working its way down his throat. There’s a roaring in his ears that makes it hard to concentrate on anything other than his heartbeat as he steps in-between parted knees.

Clay kisses him until they fall backwards onto the bed.

George keeps thrashing around later, so Clay pins him down with his forearm.

“Bossy,” George teases.

“Shut up.”

“See?” His voice is smug.

Clay nips at the soft skin underneath the valleys of his hips, which does shut him up real fast. He leans down and does something with his tongue, once, twice, before pulling off with a kiss. “Needy,” he retaliates.

George keens, arm thrown over his eyes and breath canting faster. “Shut up.”

Clay just hollows out his cheeks, threads George’s fingers through his hair, and grins at the garbled moan.

“See?” His voice is smugger.

Afterwards, they’re laying together staring up at the blue eggshell wash. Funny how the same ceiling can look so different if only there’s a good person laying under it.

“I like you too, by the way.” Fingers trail down his chest. “Because I forgot to say it back earlier.”

Clay can feel his face break out into a giant grin. “I know.”

George rolls his eyes. “You’re so annoying.”

“Oh, come on now.” His voice is so whipped, and he knows it. “You talk in your sleep and it’s always about me.”

George shoves a pillow in his face. "You're such an idiot."

They fall asleep like that, laughing under the same cornflower roof. A near-perfect little sky for their own little world. Blue always was the only colour that ever mattered, anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> the vlog is fake? oh to see without my eyes
> 
> Dream [does](https://twitter.com/Dream/status/1262297810147454977) read YA books, George [is](https://youtu.be/UimwPZ2icLM) a sleep-talker and they [do](https://dreamygeorgenap.tumblr.com/post/634330646702096384/george-doesnt-want-dream-to-leave-part-2) sync their sleep schedule
> 
> leave a kudos or tell me, tell me, tell me something i don't know in the comments & i'll love you forever!!


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